Posted tagged ‘Trump and Mexico’

(Endemic corruption, cartels, crime, an unpopular president and other bad stuff in Mexico? It must be imperialistic America’s fault. Therefore, remittances should be encouraged and all U.S. border controls eliminated. At least Obama would agree. — DM)

The government announced it would spend $50 million to hire lawyers in the United States to defend Mexican citizens there illegally and faced with deportation. This is all about money and a lot more than $50 million. The Mexican central bank tracks how much money Mexicans abroad send home and in 2016 it was $25 billion, almost all of it from Mexicans in the United States and much of it from Mexicans in the United States illegally. That remittance cash accounts for more foreign exchange than Mexican oil exports. The remittance income is rising. It was nearly $22 billion in 2013 and is expected to rise to $28 billion in 2017, unless the United States enforces its immigration laws like Mexico does. Mexico has for decades tolerated illegal migration to the United States because the corruption and bad government in Mexico did little to provide jobs for the growing number of unemployed Mexicans and created a lot of potentially troublesome young men and women. Tolerating and, for many Mexican politicians, openly supporting the illegal migrants, was a popular policy and the government came to regard it as a right. But it was also about money and the remittances created a huge source of foreign currency flowing back to Mexico.

There’s more to it than money. After years of being accused of permitting the abuse of Central American migrants who enter Mexico the government agreed pay more attention to border security on its own southern border. Many of the illegal migrants from Central American are heading for the United States and that was not seen as a Mexican problem. But criminal gangs increasingly robbed and kidnapped the migrants and the government did very little to stop that. The gangsters often attacked Mexican citizens as well. Mexico has more severe laws against illegal immigration and illegal migrants than the U.S. It also enforces them more vigorously than does the U. S. By mid-2014 Mexico agreed to undertake Operation Sur which was supposed to curb illegal Central American migrants from entering Mexico. Operation Sur increased surveillance operations along Mexico’s southern border and improved border inspections. The government also tried to improve registration of legal migrants. In addition to the criminals, local police forces in southern Mexico have been accused of extorting money from illegal migrants and police corruption has long been a major problem. Despite Operation Sur, Mexico did little halt illegal migration across its northern border.

All this was noticed in the U.S. and politicians there found themselves under increasing pressure to enforce American migration laws as vigorously as Mexico (and Canada) did. By 2016 that brought to power an American government that seemed serious about applying Mexican practices to illegal migrants and actually did so. That was unpopular in Mexico and will probably lead to unexpected changes inside Mexico. But the practice of blaming your northern neighbor for your problems is losing its punch even in Mexico.

January 28, 2017: Police discovered the decapitated corpses of three policemen from the town of Huimanguillo (Tabasco state). The victims were slain near the border with Veracruz state.

January 27, 2017: In the south (Yucatan state) the government announced the arrest of three men suspected of smuggling drugs for the Sinaloa cartel. One of these, Roberto Najera Gutierrez, was described as a senior cartel leader and one of cartel boss Joaquin Guzman’s top lieutenants. The other two individuals are also Sinaloa cartel operatives. Gutierrez has directed drug trafficking operations from Central American countries and he has been especially active in Chiapas and Yucatan states.

January 24, 2017: The government confirmed the January 19 arrest (in Sinaloa state) of Juan Jose Esparragoza Monzon, the son of a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel. Monzon is suspected of investing cartel funds in real estate in Mexico as well as being involved in violent crimes in Baja California state.

January 23, 2017: Colima state had 607 murders in 2016 versus 189 in 2015. That is a 220 percent increase. A turf war between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels is engulfing the state, with the seaport of Manzanillo the prize. Around 700,000 people live in Colima. The 2016 summary was announced just before state security officials said it believed that that Jalisco New Generation cartel gunmen were responsible for the murders of a dozen people in the state between January 19 and 23. Seven headless corpses were found near Manzanillo on January 21.

January 19, 2017: The government announced that Sinaloa cartel commander Joaquin Guzman had been extradited to the U.S. Media called the unexpectedly rapid extradition a “surprise.” In U.S. federal court in New York Guzman pled not guilty to a 17-count indictment. He faces narcotics trafficking and money laundering charges. He is also accused of ordering murders and kidnappings in the U.S.

January 17, 2017: Oil theft continues to plague the national oil company, Pemex. Attempts to sue U.S. oil companies that sold stolen petroleum products have not been successful. Pemex lost a lawsuit in December 2016 that ultimately involved 23 U.S. companies and several individuals. It was trying to recover money from the sale of stolen products. Cartels sell the stolen oil and (in some cases) refined products to all buyers, including buyers in the U.S. Pemex’s suit failed because the defendants successfully argued they did not know the oil was stolen.

January 16, 2017: Government once again said that foreign companies should not fear investing in Mexico due to fear of violence.

January 14, 2017: A Mexican federal court ordered a drug lord to pay around $1 million in indemnities for the 1985 murders of a Mexican pilot and a U.S. DEA agent. The criminal ordered to pay was identified as Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, a co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel. The murdered DEA agent was Enrique Camarena and his family will receive around $465,000.

January 11, 2017: The price of tortillas is once again increasing. They have gone up almost 20 percent in the last six months. When the price of corn and other staple goods increase, the government faces instant criticism. For the record, the price of eggs and milk has also spiked. President Enrique Pena’s poll ratings are already miserable. The majority of Mexican citizens believes his government is corrupt. Pena is trying to blame macro-economic and a new administration in the U.S. Fuel prices have increased and the peso has slipped against the dollar.

January 10, 2017: Security official said that police used surveillance photos from a parking lot to identify and then arrest Zia Zafar. Is accused of shooting and wounding U.S. consular official in Guadalajara on January 6. Zafar is a U.S. citizen from California and was extradited to the U.S. on January 9.

January 8, 2016: Protests continue over the rise in gas and diesel prices. Prices have increased 20 percent since January 1 when the government began reducing fuel subsidies. Authorities now estimate 1,500 people have been arrested for looting businesses and attacking gas stations.

January 6, 2017: Police in Ciudad Juarez broke up a gas price increase protest demonstration that tried to block the international bridge to El Paso, Texas. On the evening of January 5 demonstrators occupied customs offices on the international bridge. A government spokesman in Mexico City said that at least four people have died in violence related to gasoline price increase protests.

Los Zetas cartel gunmen ambushed a senior state prosecutor and three police officers in Tamaulipas state. Ricardo Martinez Chavez was the regional director of the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office. The attack occurred near the town of Nuevo Laredo.

January 2, 2016: Protests against the increase in fuels prices are spreading throughout the country. The fuel price increase kicked in on January 1 and the violence began on January 2nd. The government is trying to create a competitive energy market. Protestors are using the term “gasolinazo” to describe their gripe. The term translates as “gasoline-punch.” A group of protestors in Mexico City noted that President Enrique Pena promised that prices would drop after competition was introduced. However, in the initial phases of the program, prices are increasing.

December 31, 2016: The government is saying that reports are false that gunmen in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel threatened to burn down gas stations to protest impending price increases. However, for some 24 hours the claim raced around the internet and the Jalisco Attorney Generals Office began an investigation of the allegation.

December 30, 2016: Los Zetas cartel gunmen in Nuevo Laredo kidnapped four Mexican citizens who had just been deported from the U.S. The four men were rescued by Mexican Army soldiers who stormed the house where the victims were being held for ransom.

Although left-wingers have been whipping themselves into a frenzy daily, characterizing President Trump’s approach to border security as monstrous and Hitlerian, Mexico’s approach to dealing with unwanted visitors on its soil is draconian compared to America’s.

Mexican law makes it a felony to be present without permission anywhere in that country. Political activism by illegals is forbidden. Those who use fake documents to enter Mexico are jailed or deported and those who assist them are also jailed.

Mexican immigration policy is based on Mexican self-interest. Only foreigners deemed useful to Mexico are allowed in “according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress.” Immigrants to Mexico must be able to support themselves and their dependents.

Foreigners may be denied entry to Mexico if their presence is thought to: disturb “the equilibrium of the national demographics”; be detrimental to “economic or national interests”; if they have violated Mexican laws; or if they are determined not to be “physically or mentally healthy.”

***************************

Blasting President Donald Trump for his Twitter-based demands that Mexico free up the pesos needed to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, President Enrique Peña Nieto abruptly pulled out of a planned summit with Trump.

Answering Trump in kind, the Mexican head of state tweeted midday Thursday in Spanish, “We have informed the White House that I will not attend the working meeting planned for next Tuesday with @POTUS[.]”

The previous night Peña Nieto had reiterated his government’s opposition both to the wall and to his country paying for it. “I regret and reject the decision of the United States to continue building a wall that, far from uniting, divides us,” he tweeted according to an apparently reliable English translation.

In an unprecedented round of refreshingly transparent social media diplomacy, Trump, the master negotiator, published two tweets baiting his Mexican counterpart:

The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.

Peña Nieto, who is deeply unpopular in his homeland, accepted Trump’s invitation to withdraw from the Jan. 31 summit. He had come under intense pressure in his country to cancel the meeting.

And on Wednesday as Mexico’s foreign minister was reportedly in the White House trying to patch up relations between the two countries, Trump signed an executive order moving forward with construction of the wall.

A labor leader might say Trump was bargaining in bad faith but the Americans who elected him would more likely say the president is simply moving ahead with honoring his campaign pledge to build the wall as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.

The executive order was sufficient to set at least the construction planning process in motion because a 2006 law supported at the time by Democrat Sens. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton was never repealed.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) voted for the legislation in 2006 but now finds that vote decidedly inconvenient in the current political climate.

A fortnight after the recent election he said he would oppose Trump’s plan to move forward with wall construction.

“We’re not going to help him build his wall,” Schumer told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

It needs to be noted that Schumer received a rough reception from the public on Inauguration Day. In what may very well foreshadow the tone of the new 115th Congress, Schumer was booed by members of the public during his speech at the inauguration ceremonies in which he subjected the National Mall audience to an otherwise patriotic lecture that he insisted on infusing with a touch of politically correct identity-politics cant.

“Whatever our race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity,” he said. “Whether we are immigrant or native-born. Whether we live with disabilities or do not. In wealth or in poverty, we are all exceptional in our commonly held, yet fierce devotion to our country.”

Other Democrats in Congress share Schumer’s political predicament. A slew of House members including Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), at the time in the House, are still there.

Among the Democrat senators still in the Senate who voted for the 2006 measure are Tom Carper (Del.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.).

“Democrats are solidly behind controlling the border, and we support the border fence,” Feinstein said at the time. “We’ve got to get tough on the border. There’s no question the border is a sieve.”

The 11-year-old law authorizes construction of 700 miles of fencing on the southern border, along with other security measures such as cameras and sensors.

When Democrats took over the subsequent Congress, an amendment to a 2008 spending measure stripped out a statutory provision mandating among other things that the barrier be made with double-layer fencing. Democrats got to pretend they supported building the border barrier but lacking funding, the wall was stalled.

But because the law authorizing the building of the wall is still on the books, Trump was able to move the process forward Obama-style with the stroke of a pen. Now he just needs Congress to appropriate the $12 billion in construction costs. He vows to make Mexico foot the bill and has proposed slapping tariffs on Mexican imports to cover the cost.

Congress doesn’t have to pass a new law to begin construction, and can instead package the funds necessary into a massive spending bill Democrats would have a politically hard time opposing. Trump may get a head start on the process by diverting other funds congressional leaders have indicated are available for the project, ensuring a snafu over the spending bill doesn’t hinder prompt construction of the wall.

If Trump and Republicans follow through, a number of top Democrats will find they inadvertently handed Trump the border wall they now oppose. Their only option to block the construction would be to shut down the government over the matter by blocking the spending bill, a strategy they have consistently mocked and derided Republicans for using in the past.

Although left-wingers have been whipping themselves into a frenzy daily, characterizing President Trump’s approach to border security as monstrous and Hitlerian, Mexico’s approach to dealing with unwanted visitors on its soil is draconian compared to America’s.

Mexican law makes it a felony to be present without permission anywhere in that country. Political activism by illegals is forbidden. Those who use fake documents to enter Mexico are jailed or deported and those who assist them are also jailed.

Mexican immigration policy is based on Mexican self-interest. Only foreigners deemed useful to Mexico are allowed in “according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress.” Immigrants to Mexico must be able to support themselves and their dependents.

Foreigners may be denied entry to Mexico if their presence is thought to: disturb “the equilibrium of the national demographics”; be detrimental to “economic or national interests”; if they have violated Mexican laws; or if they are determined not to be “physically or mentally healthy.”

According to Discover the Networks:

Mexican guards at the Guatemalan border, the locale for most attempts at illegal entry, are notorious for the brutality of their treatment of would-be immigrants. The guards’ use of violence, rape, and extortion against those seeking to cross into Mexico has, in fact, managed the border so well that the country has only a minimal illegal-immigration problem.

The Mexican government provides “survival kits” and maps to those seeking to sneak into the U.S. A dozen years ago Mexico’s foreign ministry published a 32-page book called “The Guide for the Mexican Migrant,” that explained to would-be border jumpers how to evade U.S. law enforcement.

“This guide is intended to give you some practical advice that could be of use if you have made the difficult decision to seek new work opportunities outside your country,” the book reads. Comic book-style illustrations showed illegals wading into a river in order to steer clear of the U.S. Border Patrol.

The guidebook advised readers to “[t]ry to walk during times when the heat is not as intense[,]” and drink “[s]alt water [because it] helps you retain your body’s liquids.” It also provided sound sartorial advice: “Thick clothing increases your weight when wet, and this makes it difficult to swim or float.”

In a column last year, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) explained why the government of Mexico encourages its citizens to move to the U.S. by any means possible.

Mexico sees Mexicans in the United States as strategic assets in every sense of that word. They are seen as extensions of the Mexican state and partners in Mexico’s plans.

Mexico amended its constitution to permit dual citizenship and to let Mexicans residing outside Mexico vote in Mexican elections, Tancredo wrote. It did this to increase the Mexican population within the U.S. Moreover, he wrote, it is Mexican government policy to treat “all Mexican-Americans as ‘Mexicans First’ and Americans second.” Children born to Mexican nationals in the U.S. are dual citizens of both countries at the time of their birth and qualify to vote in Mexican elections when they’re older.

These policies are not “mere expressions of Mexican pride,” according to Tancredo.

They are indications of a policy of planned interference in American domestic affairs. The policy of dual citizenship is only the visible tip of the iceberg of a strategic plan for active and overt involvement in American politics to advance Mexican government interests.

Anyone who thinks I am exaggerating should do a little research and listen to the words of Mexican leaders. For example, Vincente Fox, President of Mexico from 2000-2006, proclaimed from a Texas stage that Mexico believes any person of Mexican descent owes a loyalty to Mexico “unto the seventh generation.”

Mexican politicians also encourage settlement in “el Norte” because they don’t want to lose the $25 billion in hard currency that the millions of Mexicans in the U.S. who can’t find work in Mexico send in the form of cash remittances every year to their families in Mexico.

Trump could choose to pay for the wall by imposing a tax on foreign remittances. That would be painless for most Americans and have the added bonus of removing the incentive for many illegal aliens from Mexico to stay here. And it would drive the already-enraged Left crazy and encourage its activists to take their protests against Trump to the next level of nuttiness. Such a move could cause a backlash that would likely advance Republican interests.

Gimenez cited an executive order signed Wednesday by President Donald Trump that threatened to cut federal grants for any counties or cities that don’t cooperate fully with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since 2013, Miami-Dade has refused to indefinitely detain inmates who are in the country illegally and wanted by ICE — not based on principle, but because the federal government doesn’t fully reimburse the county for the expense.

It looks like Trump wasn’t joking on the campaign trail when he claimed under his presidency, “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.”

After eight long years of Barack Obama, Americans desperately need to win.